Toronto Maple Leafs to Place Matt Murray on LTIR

The Toronto Maple Leafs official media relations department announced through Twitter that goaltender Matt Murray would be out indefinitely and placed on long term injured reserve (LTIR) before the start of the season.

The move, along with doing the same thing with Jake Muzzin gets the Toronto Maple Leafs a lot closer the salary cap than they were a few days ago.

By placing the veteran goalie on LTIR, the Leafs are currently now expected to be sitting slightly over $2 Million above the salary cap.

Murray was acquired for free by former Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas prior to the 2022-23 season, along with a third and seventh round pick from the Ottawa Senators.

Toronto Maple Leafs to Place Matt Murray on LTIR

The move was immediately received with criticism as Dubas was only able to get the Senators to retain 25% of his contract despite how much his game had dropped off and his injury history.

The critics were able to get louder after the first week of the regular season that saw Murray lose the season opener when he surrendered four goals on just 23 games and was placed on LTIR three days later.

Murray was able to curb the negativity when he returned to the line-up after he went on a run of 16 starts over nearly two months where he went 11-3-2 with a 2.38 GAA and .923 save percentage. (nhl.com).

During that run, the story line had changed to mocking the Senators for giving the Maple Leafs draft picks to take on one of the best goalies in the league.

Unfortunately from mid January until the end of the season Murray could not consistently stay healthy and when he was in the net he couldn’t stop the puck.  The former Greyhound goalie would play in just nine games after January 11 posting a 3-4-0 record with 4.22 goals against average and .868 save percentage.

Throughout the 2022-23 season, Murray was placed on the injured list three separate occasions accounting for a total of 97 days.

There was some recent speculation that the Maple Leafs may buyout the final year of his contract, however due to his injury history, Elliott Friedman speculated that he may not be eligible for a buyout.

If this spells the end of Matt Murray in Toronto, then the trade was a positive one as the Leafs were paid to take him, he was good when he played, and he ultimately didn’t cost the team anything to get out from under his contract.

The next piece of work is finding an additional $2.1 Million of cap space to bring them under the maximum allowed.